I received almost 100 entries in my Promising Beginnings contest. It was very difficult choosing just one winner among all the wonderful submissions. But after a lot of prayerful consideration, I finally selected one.

Tara Johnson won the Promising Beginnings contest with her submission of “Engraved on the Heart.”

Tara Johnson is an author, singer, and speaker from Alexander, Arkansas. A passionate lover of stories, she loves to travel to churches, ladies’ retreats, and prisons to share her testimony of how God led her into freedom after spending years living shackled to the expectations of others as a preacher’s kid.

Her first nonfiction book, Hollow Victory: How to Identify and Disarm 5 Landmines that Make Victorious Christian Living Feel Like a Lie, was released in 2014. She has won the Bronze Medal in the Frazier awards hosted by My Book Therapy and has articles published in Plain Truth magazine and Live It Loud magazine and has been a featured guest on Voice of Truth radio and Enduring Word radio. Tara is a member of ACFW and is represented by Janet Grant of Books & Such Literary Agency. She and her husband, Todd, have been married for eighteen years and the Lord has blessed them with five children: Bethany, Callie, Nate, as well as Taylor Lynn and Morgan Lane who are with Jesus.

Engraved on the Heart is a historical romance.

Timid Kate Montgomery has lived her life in the shadows. Shamed by her family for her illness, she is unable to refuse their stifling demands. Until her old schoolmate Micah shows her a life-changing truth that sets her feet on a new path … as a conductor in the Underground Railroad.

Micah Greyson is torn between the life he’s always known in Savannah and the fight for abolition, and he is desperate to bury his father’s stained reputation. As a physician, his life’s calling seems clear. Until Kate Montgomery walks back into his life and turns his well-ordered plans upside down.

Battling an angry fiancée, a war-tattered brother, bounty hungers, and their own personal demons, Kate and Micah must abandon their fears and embrace the precarious unknown. Will they unearth the treasure that overcomes even the most perilous conflicts of human history?

Thank you so much, everyone! It’s a dream come true and I’m so thankful for Kathy’s generosity and God’s lavish grace. I pray He blesses her as deeply as she blesses so many others, I can’t wait to meet those attending…what a joy!